Build 100,000 publicly owned homes in Scotland

With approximately 150,000 people on waiting lists for social housing and 40% of all households suffering from fuel poverty. Scotland faces a housing crisis.

At the same time rents are steadily increasing, frequently ahead of inflation and ahead of average wage rises for tenants. This squeeze is increasing poverty, ill health and giving abusive landlords free reign to act outside the law.

All of this is adding to the extreme pressure put on our housing services already unable to cope, with more and more people being made homeless and even dying on the street (1 every week in Glasgow alone). We feel that in such extreme times, extreme measures must be taken.

Please support RISE - Scotland's call for the Scottish Government at Holyrood to immediately enact a cap on all rent increases in Scotland in both the private and social sector. We further call for the building of 100,000 publicly owned houses for affordable rent, built to minimise fuel poverty and to stringent environmental standards.

We have done it before from 1945 to 1951 the UK government built 1.2 million publicly owned houses. This laid the groundwork for decades of improvement in people’s lives. We believe a similar house building programme can do the same again, lifting hundreds of thousands out of poverty and into prosperity.

An extensive house building scheme such as this would serve to stimulate our domestic economy, provide jobs and apprenticeships for thousands of young workers. Scotland has invested heavily on infrastructure projects to help business grow, now it’s time to invest in housing to help people grow.